As a people, aren’t we grateful that family prayer is not an out-of-date practice with us? There is not a more beautiful sight in all this world than to see a family praying together. There is real meaning behind the oft-quoted adage: “The family that prays together stays together.” The Lord directed that we have family prayer when He said: “Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed.” (3 Ne. 18:21.)
I am not sure if I truly ever knew the truthfulness of that statement. For a few weeks, Owen didn't want to pray with us even thought before that, he was doing really good. He was always eager to say prayers even though it mostly comprised of being thankful for his toys. But somehow, something happened and made him very "uncooperative" when its time to pray. He came up with silly excuses like: "I'm too tired. I'm too sleepy." Or sometimes, he would even resort to throwing fits. But these last couple of weeks, something changed again - almost like a small miracle that I was able to witness in front of my very eyes. Ever since we noticed how uncooperative he had become, we realized that we, as his parents, were mostly at fault. After all, it was our job to teach how to pray. We had not been good examples. We had broken that consistency of saying family prayers together when we were busy doing different things. But as soon as we learned to realize our mistake, and swallowed our pride, things started changing for the better.
Last night, we had another family home evening, and we had tons of fun again! Before I left for work, Owen came into our room and climbed into bed. I told him that it was the night for Family Home Evening again. He got excited, and remembered the game we played the previous week. His excitement made me happy and excited too! I looked forward to getting home from work as soon as possible and when I got home, we had dinner, turned off the t.v. and then we had our Family Home Evening. We had fun again!
When it was time to pray, Owen gladly said the prayer. Even when it's someone's turn, as soon as Michelle and I would start, he'd start saying: "Thank you for my toys." Of course....how can you not be thankful for your toys, right?
I guess I am just glad that we have been getting better. It does make a big difference to pray together. I feel like we are on the right track. I know there are still many things that we need to be better at, but this is a good start.
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